Grand Courtyard

I was surprised to see how much open space was dedicated to the Bahia Palace since the medina of Marrakesh was very crowded. I guess those rules don’t apply to you if you are the grand vizier. Ahmed Ben Moussa use the Bahia Palace for his personal and business use. If you are going to be having visitors, you would usually want to impress them. This is particularly true of government officials. I get to see the Moroccan style of doing it. The palace isn’t anywhere near as grandiose as Versailles but this is the Moroccan way of impressing people. One of the largest features of the Bahia Palace is the grand courtyard which is the largest courtyard of the palace.

The large courtyard is paved with marble and it is obviously meant to impress. A gallery surrounds the courtyard to help hide from the sun. The reason why this place was this large was that this used to be the site of stables and gardens. I guess taking over them is easier. Just like the other courtyards, there are also other rooms which surround this one. The looks pretty much like all the others with the same painted ceilings which I have seen previously.

[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/BahiaPalace.kmz} zoom=19]